Southwestern Ontario MPP Maria Van Bommel, a former board member with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture, has been named parliamentary assistant to the province’s ag, food and rural affairs minister.
Van Bommel, the MPP for Lambton-Kent-Middlesex since 2003, returned to the ag file last week in a shuffle of assistants’ portfolios by Premier Dalton McGuinty.
She previously served in the same role (June 2005 to March 2006), but until last week had been in the assistant’s seat for the provincial ministers of children and youth services (since October 2007) and women’s issues (since September 2009).
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Parliamentary assistants in Ontario work with their assigned cabinet ministers — in this case, Agriculture Minister Carol Mitchell — to make sure government objectives are met when policies are put in place.
The assistant also regularly represents his or her given ministry during legislative debates and is often responsible for special projects.
“Agriculture and rural affairs in Ontario are very near and dear to my heart and certainly extremely important to my constituents,” Van Bommel said in a release.
“In rural Ontario, we face many challenges daily, with fluctuating markets, fluctuating weather conditions and a changing economy. I am pleased to be on the front lines to ensure that rural Ontarians, and especially residents of Lambton-Kent-Middlesex, have access to provincial services like health care, education, broadband, green energy and new business opportunities to keep our communities vibrant.”
Van Bommel’s agriculture resume is far from thin. She studied at Centralia College of Agricultural Technology and currently runs a poultry farm with her husband at Strathroy, west of London.
Before entering provincial politics, she served as an OFA member services representative for Lambton and Middlesex counties and is also credited with helping launch the Middlesex’s Women for the Support of Agriculture, the Ontario Farm Women’s Network and the Canadian Farm Women’s Network.
Van Bommel also served stints as a director of the Middlesex Federation of Agriculture and as a provincial-level director with the OFA. She entered politics in 1995 at the municipal level, serving two terms on the council for East Williams Township.
As parliamentary assistant for agriculture, she replaces Haliburton-Kawartha Lakes-Brock MPP Rick Johnson, who was shuffled last week to the infrastructure portfolio.
The OFA, in a separate release Tuesday, hailed Van Bommel’s appointment back to the agriculture file, noting the ag ministry needs to have “effective leaders that understand the needs of farmers and businesses.”
OFA president Bette Jean Crews, in the same release, hailed Van Bommel’s “impressive (background) in leadership positions and working with the community.”
